Abstract
Multigenerational housing is an arena of negotiation of familial, intergenerational, and interpersonal relationships. This article analyses these relations while focusing on the issue of home ownership. Drawing upon interviews with three generations living under the same roof, the article aims to understand the meanings of ownership and the ways ownership shapes the relationships between cohabiting family members. We show that ownership plays an ambivalent role: on the one hand it may act to legitimise and (re)produce uneven power relations between family members, while on the other it mirrors or even supports mutual dependency and altruistic intergenerational and caring relations. To illuminate these issues, we structure our debate around three key topics: 1. ownership and the legitimisation of a dominant position, 2. ownership as a burden and a source of (in)security and interdependence, and 3. ownership as a commitment to care for the former owners. We interpret these aspects in the context of particular family genealogies and their housing histories.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 This cohabitation was the only case where all cohabiting family members paid rent. The budget from this rent was used for repairs or for buying common equipment (such as a swimming pool for the garden). In other cases, the cohabiting interviewees shared the expenses for the running of the house (electricity, water and sewer rates, fee for Internet etc.).
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Notes on contributors
Adéla Souralová
Adéla Souralová is Assistant Professor at Department of Sociology (Social Anthropology Program), Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic. In her research she concentrates on the issues of intergenerational relationships, paid care, migration and sociology of family. She published a book titled New Perspectives on Mutual Dependency in Care-giving (Ashgate, 2015), several chapters in edited volumes (Routledge, Ashgate, Brill) and articles in international journals (Global Networks, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Childhood, Ageing and Society, Journal of Family Studies, etc.).
Michaela Žáková
Michaela Žáková is a PhD student at the Department for the Study of Religions at Masaryk University, where she studies the meanings of cricket for minority groups in the Czech Republic. She focuses on qualitative research methods and the potentials of Ethnomethodology in the study of contemporary social problems.